To The Last
by Jetpack Monkey
Summary: The desperation of the stranded is matched only by their singlemindedness. Captain Jack, post POTW.


He spent the first month searching for survivors. There weren't any, of course. The Daleks had been thorough. Still, he visited every single floor, scouring, calling out, waiting for a cry for help that he knew wouldn't come. He found a lot of deactivated 'droids. 

He spent the next month reprogramming them. One with a blond helmet he called Rose and kept by his side. The rest he sent to collect the bodies and transmat them back to Earth.

He slept on Floor 500, his back against the laminated metal deck. He never caught more than a few hours. He'd awake to a mechanical wheezing, bolt straight up, his heart pounding. A few seconds of listening to the darkness would inevitably reveal that the commotion was merely an air compressor switching on.

He fiddled with the transmitters. Rose-bot helped. The few chronal circuits were useless - melted. He'd have to fashion new ones. He had time. He had all the time in the universe.

His beard was full and unwieldy now. He never trimmed it. A waste of time, time better spent on bolstering the transmitters. The Doctor's rewiring proved more a burden than a boon. If he wanted to fry his brain, he had a perfectly good pistol to do it with.

Earth tried contacting him once. He sent them back a load of static, and then scrapped the communications panel for spare parts.

The device was simplistic. A Salinger beam to pierce the veil of space/time, then a message transmittal. If the TARDIS was in the timestream, she'd pick it up. All the power of the station, minus life support, had been rerouted to this single purpose. Even the 'droids had been deactivated. Rose-bot went last.

He rewired, crosswired, overwired, and jerryrigged the Gamestation in order to get the necessary power. He only had one shot. Then every transformer in the station would blow, the life support would probably go in the ensuing conflagration, and he'd be out of air in a few hours. Only a little time for the Doctor and Rose to find him. Even though the TARDIS was a time machine, it wasn't particularly accurate. There was always the chance they'd arrive five minutes too late.

He was okay with those odds.

Darkness surrounded him. The emergency lights weren't even on -- he couldn't spare even a microwatt. He held a flashlight over the crudely fashioned device. It looked like a motherboard with a lightswitch attached to it, and in a way it was. The electrical charge would tell the circuits to direct the station's power to the necessary places and in the necessary ways.

He gripped the device tight, smiled. "Ladies and gentleman... I'm coming home." He flipped the switch.

The station's power sang through the circuitry, every particle of energy racing towards the transmitters he'd realigned, all focused on the same precise spot. A roar bellowed from the walls, shaking the loose nuts and bolts strewn about the floor. He didn't have a monitor to see, but he could tell that it was working. At least, he hoped this meant it was working.

The singing turned to screaming as the station's generators began to blow out, one by one. He leaned against the dead computer banks and prayed. A horrible clicking grind emanated from the air ducts. He'd just lost life support. Only a matter of time now...

The cold came quickly. He cursed at this - it was meant to take longer. The windows in the decks below must have blown. He was sealed in tight on this floor, but not vacuum tight. If the other decks were exposed, that meant he was losing air a lot faster than anticipated.

He huddled against himself, staring at the space where the TARDIS stood an eternity ago. Each new breath battled its way in and out of his lungs. His vision started to diffuse, but being in total dark, there wasn't much to see anyway. His eyelids drooped as he inhaled almost nothing. His head hit the deck. They weren't coming. Rose wasn't coming. The Doctor wasn't coming. Nothing.

Just before he lost consciousness, he swore he heard that damned air compressor again.


End file.
